POV: Haruki
"Master, Lady Grayfia has arrived," said the melodic voice of Ravel.
"Very well, Ravel. Prepare us some of your tea," I said, humming.
I had been working on my studies regarding alchemy and it had proven to be a dense subject, the sort of challenge that consumed both time and will. Yet I must master it quickly, for my plans cannot proceed otherwise. And besides, it is challenging enough to distract me from the cataclysmic failure of the vampire affair. Truth be told, I have been sleeping little these days, plagued by dreams of thousands of screams. That is why I bury myself in work, suffocating guilt with study.
I have also been training Valerie in the use of her Sacred Gear and in general knowledge, alongside experiments with the Sephiroth Graal, which has become another essential component to my goal. As for the others – Elmenhilde, Selvara, Vaelith, and Ariel – I gave them the choice of how they wished to proceed. If they had somewhere else to go or other agendas to pursue, they were free to leave. I made it clear that I expected nothing in return for saving them. Ariel, unsurprisingly, swore herself to me. Her traumatic experience under Doarian made it impossible for her to return to her people. The three vampires surprised me, however, in that they also chose to remain. They said they owed me, but in truth, they were too afraid to face the world alone after their kind had been annihilated. In other words, they cling to me out of fear and lack of alternatives.
So I have been training them too. Though vampires do not usually improve much from training, it is still useful to refine their control and creativity with their natural abilities. They were enthusiastic, but I suspect that enthusiasm is laced with fear of becoming useless in my eyes, as if I might abandon them. A foolish worry, for I will not discard them, least of all because they have nothing to offer. A person is not a thing that is only kept because they are useful or be thrown out when they no longer are.
As for vampire abilities, I have lost everything I inherited from Dorian. A shame, as so many of them had been useful. Yet not a complete loss. With demonic energy it is possible to replicate their function, though not quite as potent as the original. Still, I have firsthand experience with their mechanics, and my mastery over demonic energy has grown. That will be a matter for the future though. For now, I have the wife of Satan to attend.
I walked calmly into the living room and met the gaze of the silver-haired beauty in a maid's attire. Grayfia Lucifuge. A woman whose body was made to seduce, like all devils. Contrary to popular belief, devils do age, but very slowly. Few allow themselves to appear older than thirty, for vanity runs deep in their kind. They use demonic energy to preserve youth, beauty, and allure. To them, youth and power are the only treasures worth having. Understandable, when most believe there is nothing after death for them. It is a common belief that Devils simply cease to be after they die.
I regarded my guest as she stood up from her seat and bowed with impeccable form. There is beauty even to her simple movement, as is with most entities that are ultimate class or above. Their very nature is so transcendent that they seem flawless to those that are their lessers.
"Good evening, Lord Yamashiro. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice," said Grayfia in her always polite tone.
"No problem, please take a seat," I said, lowering myself into a chair opposite hers. I allowed silence to reign for a moment before speaking again.
"Tell me, my Lady, do you never tire of playing the servant? You are the wife of Lucifer himself, yet you come before me in a maid's attire, as though rank and station could be so easily disguised."
While it may be considered rude to ask a lady why she dresses the way she does, I do not let things like manners inconvenience me when it comes to my curiosity.
Her eyes did not flicker, nor did her expression falter.
"I do it for aesthetics," she answered calmly.
"Aesthetic," I repeated, turning the word on my tongue. "A fascinating reason. Aesthetic, like beauty, is purely based upon emotion and expression, there is no deeper reason nor analysis needed, it is only the pleasurable experience gained that matters. It is not necessity, nor is it virtue; it is the deliberate choice of how one wishes to be perceived. You hide strength beneath the image of service, though you are anything but a servant. Tell me, then, does not such a philosophy become a mask so convincing that eventually one begins to mistake it for the face beneath?"
"Aesthetic is not a mask," Grayfia said, her tone firm yet polite. "It is an ordering principle. It imposes discipline upon appearances, and discipline, in turn, sustains dignity."
I had not expected her to entertain my inane rambling. I have never cared for aesthetics as philosophy, truth be told. It too often degenerates into hollow hedonism.
"And yet," I murmured, "dignity is as mutable as a dress. The world is full of men and women who disguise themselves with the appearance of control while collapsing inwardly. What is discipline, if not the art of concealing tremor?"
She did not react, not in an obvious way at least. It is however clear that this is not the conversation she expected when she came here. Her hands folded neatly upon her lap, perfect in their stillness. "An interesting remark, Lord Yamashiro. Discipline conceals, yes, but it also preserves. Without it, we fall prey to impulse, and impulse always leads to ruin."
"Perhaps," I said, leaning back slightly, "but I wonder if ruin is always to be feared. To break is to reveal what strength one truly possesses. To polish appearances endlessly is to live a kind of half-life, forever arranging the furniture while the house crumbles. I would prefer collapse than that."
Grayfia regarded me quietly for a moment before continuing. "I note that collapse has become a subject of much discussion in recent months. The massacre of the vampire species has unsettled the entire supernatural community. There are those who say a betrayal from within allowed the Hero Faction to breach their defenses. You will understand, Lord Yamashiro, that such events inspire a great deal of speculation."
"I can imagine," I said mildly.
"Speculation," she repeated with faint emphasis, "which extends to the whereabouts of certain individuals who were curiously absent during the time of those events."
I allowed myself the shadow of a smile. "Are you suggesting that my disappearance should be linked with the great event of this epoch?"
"I suggest nothing," she replied, her courtesy unshaken. "But it is a matter of public record that you vanished for three months, after all during that time, I came thrice to your residence and found it empty. Now you return, and the world looks very different."
"Indeed," I said, pouring myself some tea as though her words carried no weight at all. "But I fear you will be quite disappointed, my lady. My vanishing act has no grand tale attached. I am not in the habit of accounting for my movements, nor am I inclined to start now. If there are suspicions, they are free to persist."
She is likely just trying to find out where I really was instead of really believing I had anything to do with it.
"And yet your absence placed others in danger," she met my gaze unflinchingly. "The Hero Faction's assault, as you have no doubt heard, frightened the devil nobility to such a degree that many recalled their heirs from the human world, fearing that their bloodlines would be targeted next. My lady Rias, however, refused her father's command, declaring that she would remain where she was until you returned. You understand, then, why your choices affect more than yourself."
"Ah, so now I am made the custodian of Rias's resolve?" I asked dryly. "How curious. I was under the impression she had reached the age where her actions were her own. If she chose to wait, that is her affair, not mine. Surely you are not suggesting I am responsible for every gesture of defiance she makes."
"Responsibility," Grayfia said softly, "is not always chosen. Sometimes it is simply there."
"And yet, I am not in the habit of carrying burdens others lay at my feet," I set down my cup, my voice cold. "If Rias wishes to tether her choices to my absence, that is her decision. I will not be questioned for it. She is free, after all, and so am I."
There was silence for a while, where we looked at each other without blinking. If she thinks she can guilt trip me or threaten me into cooperating with her, then she is sorely mistaken.
The atmosphere was interrupted by the door opening. Then footsteps approached us, Ravel coming with the teas. She elegantly served us our cups and we expressed our gratitude after which she left us to our discussion, though not before bowing first.
All this while Grayfia maintained steady eye contact with me, observing me with intense curiosity. Then she smiled.
"You are right, Rias is fully capable of making her own decision," said Grayfia. "I am being an ungracious guest, my apologies. I had to make sure," said Grayfia, now her demeanor had changed from servant to that of a high-class lady, beautiful and graceful in equal measure.
"Make sure?" I repeated, raising my brow.
"You, my dear Haruki, have utterly bewitched my husband," she said, giggling amusedly.
I simply raised my brow again, I did not understand what she meant.
"You are all he talks about these days," she began. "Sirzechs has this tendency to idolize people to a great extent. Seeing them as something greater and better than they are. Are you aware of the circumstances of his birth?" she asked.
"Are you referring to the story that he was born as a pure power of destruction?" I asked, taking a sip of my tea.
"Yes, he is the concept of destruction personified," said Grayfia. "He has always been powerful, far too powerful. As a result he sometimes cannot really understand us normal people. It is like a human trying to understand an ant. He sees things clearly, to him peaceful coexistence with other people seems the most normal thing in the world and he cannot understand why people would wage war at all. So he tries to conceptualize other people as well to better understand them. For example, Rias is to him the purity and innocence of childhood, a proof of how innocent and kind devils can be if nurtured correctly. Do you want to guess how he sees you?" asked Grayfia, smiling softly when speaking of her husband.
"Pride and recklessness?" I guessed uninterested, it matters little to me how anyone else sees me.
"I said it before, did I not?" said Grayfia. "He sees people as greater and better than they actually are. That is one of the reasons why he can inspire great loyalty, by believing in the best of people. So no, he does not see you as the reckless and prideful person you are. Instead, he sees you as the personification of freedom and unlimited potential for greatness. That if you apply yourself, you can achieve anything, even things he himself could not achieve. He believes you to be the one to bridge the division between the light and the dark," explained Grayfia.
That is an interesting way of looking at things I suppose but it seemed very naive to me.
"You are thinking him to be a naive fool, are you not?" she said, observing my amused smile. "You would be surprised how often he is right in his judgement. But of course, sometimes there are those that just slip through the cracks. But that is what I am for, to do the things he would not and could not do. So I came here to meet you personally to see what type of person you are," said Grayfia.
It seems so many people are eager to understand me, to put me in some little box where they have convinced themselves I would fit in.
"And what do you think so far?" I asked, amused at the turn of the conversation.
"I think you are a fundamentally kind person, who hides it behind the mask of pride and arrogance," she concluded.
"And here I thought, only your husband was the optimistic fool," I said dryly.
"Well I pretty much have to be to fall in love with destruction incarnate," she shrugged. "Still, calling my husband an optimistic fool. You sure are ballsy," she said carelessly.
"Be that as it may, why do you not tell me why you really came here," I said, eager to end the conversation and return to my work. "We could dance around the topic all day long but I am sure we both have better things to do," I said.
"I suppose you are right," she said. "I am here to invite you for my son's birthday celebration." She stated simply.
I blinked, taken aback by what she said. "I do not understand…" I said.
"Birthdays? It is an anniversary of the day on which a person was born," she explained with a serious face.
"Thank you for the explanation," I said, rolling my eyes. "But I was referring more to the fact that Sirzechs is using his son's birthday for a political statement," I said.
Because that is what it is. By attending the celebration, it would be my first ever debut to the underworld and it would show the devils that I was on Sirzechs's side and thus agree with the progressive factions. I just did not expect Sirzechs to be this pragmatic, I thought he would be the sentimental type who would not want to involve his son in the world of politics this early.
"Well it was my idea actually," said Grayfia. "You are going to have to eventually be involved in the underworld politics, whether you like it or not. The countless invitations sent to Rias to reach you are a proof of that. I thought it would be best to make it clear that you are on good terms with our side. So close in fact we would invite you to the birthday celebration of our only son."
"Which would give you more influence on the house of lords, especially ones that are part of the Lucifer cults or old fashioned," I said.
There is perhaps an opportunity here. I have my own agreement with Sirzechs and besides this just helps me advance more on my agenda. "Very well. When is it?" I asked.
"In three weeks," she answered, much to my surprise. "This went easier than I expected," said Grayfia.
"I made a deal with Sirzechs," I said. "He partially fulfilled his end of the bargain. It is about time I repay that."
"Well now that this is handled. It is time I head back," said Grayfia standing up. "Please thank Lady Ravel for the delicious tea. Also bring a plus one for the celebration," she said as she exited my house first and disappeared with a magic circle.
I did not really see the point of personally coming to invite me when a letter or message to Rias would have sufficed, but who am I to judge how Satan's wife spends her time. I suppose I must now consider what gift to present the son of Lucifer, and who to bring as my companion.
———————————————
I thought about the Hero Faction as I walked to my destination. At the beginning, I had taken them for misguided heroes. Le Fay had once recounted the oath they swore, describing the state of frenzy in which they bound themselves, intoxicated by their outrage at the injustice of the world. She had retold Cao Cao's speech too, delivered with such venom and anger that it gave the illusion of being genuine. At the time I had almost believed him. I had felt a degree of sympathy, for I am not unfamiliar with reckless action myself. Still, it did not take a genius to see that such an oath carried within it the seed of something darker. An oath too perfect, sworn by people all too imperfect. Too absolute, and nothing that is absolute can end well.
Perhaps it was a remnant of my own naïve streak, but I had once thought that Cao Cao's cry of injustice was truly for all of humanity, that his fury was not selective. Only later did I realize the truth, that his compassion extended no further than his own definition of humanity. Everyone else could be discarded. The realization was simple enough in hindsight, yet it arrived too late to spare anyone.
I see it still whenever I close my eyes. The screams return without fail: children, women, men, slaughtered before me while I stood powerless to intervene. That has become a constant dream ever since that day. Yet there are variations. At times I see the hollow eyes of the humans who had suffered under the vampires' hands, those that had their dignity stripped to be nothing more than food. I see the woman forced to lick the floor for their amusement. On other nights the images converge, and Cao Cao himself stands laughing with the vampires, both the protectors and predators of humanity delighting in the ruin of innocents.
Cao Cao and his faction were supposed to be the saviors of mankind, the heroes of this tale. The vampires were supposed to be the villains. But in my dreams I looked from the villains to the heroes, and from the heroes to the villains, and from the villains to the heroes again; and already it was impossible to say which was which.
I looked at the stairs in front of me; it seemed I had arrived at my destination. I climbed the steps leading to the shrine.
"Welcome, Haruki-kun," came the playful voice of Akeno.
I lifted my eyes and found her waiting, clad in a shrine maiden's attire that, far from restraining her beauty, seemed only to heighten it.
"Thank you for agreeing to my selfish request, Haruki-kun!" she said, smiling softly.
"No problem at all," I answered courteously. "Besides, it is quite the delight to see you in such an outfit."
"Fufu. How shameless of you, to flirt with a shrine maiden. Have you no respect for the gods?" she said, giggling.
"Respect for the gods is precisely what restrains me, Akeno," I replied with a faint smile. "Were it not for them watching, I might be tempted to say something truly inappropriate."
Her eyes narrowed in mock reproach, though amusement lingered on her lips. "And what would that be, I wonder? You tempt me to demand an answer."
"To demand an answer would be to risk satisfaction," I said smoothly. "And I would not wish to rob you of the pleasure of wondering."
"How cruel you are," she murmured, tilting her head with deliberate sweetness. "To bring me to the edge of curiosity and then deny me the final step."
This girl is way too good at flirting, and I cannot really tell if she means any of what she says at all. What confuses me however is that ever since my return, or rather after I crashed the wedding, she has been treating me differently. I wouldn't say she hated me before that, but there was a noticeable distance between us and it is clear she was not a huge fan of my attitude, but it seems something happened that changed her opinion of me. The Akeno of before would hardly flirt with me.
"Cruelty is too heavy a word," I replied, stepping closer. "I prefer to think of it as restraint. If I gave you everything at once, you would soon grow bored, would you not?"
She covered her lips with her sleeve, laughter in her eyes. "You assume much, Haruki-kun. Perhaps I would not bore so easily."
"Then I will test that theory," I said, keeping an amused expression. "To speak the truth, I had always thought that you disliked me, no doubt due to my amazing personality."
"I don't find you repulsive," she said, in mock seriousness.
I see this as an absolute win.
"Splendid. Then you won't be averse to catching me when I swoon over your compliments," I said with deadpan, to which she giggled.
"I am surprised though, I did not expect to see you in such holy places, as a shrine maiden no less," I said casually.
It occurred to me then that I do not really know much about Rias's peerage. I knew them only superficially, and if I was put to a gunpoint I would not be able to answer what they did in their free time.
"Well normally it would not be really possible for a devil to work in a shrine but there were certain special circumstances that made it possible," she said. "For one, the previous priestess died, leaving the place empty as there were not many people who wished to use it and bouchou being helpful as always managed to secure it for me."
"So that is all one needs to be a shrine maiden?" I asked surprised. I had thought they would be more strict, like not allowing devils.
"Not any devil can become one," she explained. "But I am a special case. You see, my mother was a devotee of the goddess Amaterasu. So it was not like I became one out of nowhere."
She said was. Does that mean her mother is dead or that she is no longer a shrine maiden? I noticed that there was a certain melancholy when she mentioned her mother. We continued walking as Akeno showed me around the shrine.
There were various beautiful flowers arranged outside of the shrine. There were various butterflies flying around that gave the place a picturesque look. A butterfly flew and landed on Akeno's hands, and she observed it reverently.
"It is good luck to have a butterfly land on you," I whispered. Akeno looked puzzled at me. "If you make a wish, the butterfly will fly away and use its magic to make your wish come true," I explained.
"Really? I've never heard that before," she said, looking at me interested.
"Of course not," I said, smiling. "I made it up just now."
She laughed at that, her laughter was like a waterfall.
After showing me around, she invited me inside. She told me that this was where she lived. I sat in the Japanese styled room while Akeno prepared some tea.
"Here you go," she said after a while, giving me the tea.
"Thank you," I said and took a sip. It was bitter in taste, but that is to be expected. It is after all special tea usually prepared only at a shrine by maiden.
"You are supposed to turn the cup three times before you drink it, you know," said Akeno, chastising me softly.
"I am aware," I said. "Do not mistake it for ignorance. I did it intentionally," I said.
"Oh? Why would you do it intentionally," she asked curiously.
"There was a shrine priestess back in my hometown. I believe I was eight or nine years old at that time. I was an arrogant shit back then–" I said before I was interrupted.
"Back then?" said Akeno with amusement in her eyes.
"Ok, still am," I admitted without shame. "In any case, I remember mocking other children for behaving foolishly as we visited the shrine. The priestess heard me and said it is better to help others understand than to mock them. That, to mock others is to place oneself above others, which is hubris, a deadly sin. But of course I was an argumentative brat back then, so I argued that I did not think I was better than them. I said I knew I was."
"That is just so like you," said Akeno, giggling.
"Anyway," I continued, waving my hand lazily as though brushing away the weight of years, "she challenged me to some inane game. Nothing particularly interesting. She placed three cups upside down on the tatami, slipped a pebble under one, and told me to follow it as she shuffled them about. If I guessed right, she said, she would admit that I was cleverer than the rest. If I guessed wrong, I had to apologize to the other kids for being rude."
Akeno's eyes gleamed with curiosity. "Ah, a child's game of shells. That sounds harmless enough. And what happened?"
"What happened," I said dryly, "is that I guessed correctly. Not once, not twice, but three times in a row. Yet every time she lifted the cup, it was empty. The pebble had vanished into thin air. I thought I had gone mad."
Akeno brought her sleeve to her lips, amusement flashing in her eyes. "Are you certain you weren't simply mistaken?"
"Not in the least. I had the eyes of a hawk even then. So I demanded to see her hands. She refused. Naturally, that only confirmed my suspicion. I insisted again, and at last she relented, revealing the pebble clenched between her fingers. She had cheated from the very beginning."
"Fufu. So the wise priestess resorted to trickery?"
"Yes," I said with the gravity of a man recounting a lifelong betrayal. "She told me it was a lesson in humility. That sometimes, no matter how sharp one's eyes or how quick one's wits, one must accept defeat graciously. But what I understood was this: she never intended to lose in the first place. The entire contest was rigged to humiliate me."
Akeno could not contain herself; her laughter spilled out, soft at first, then bright and melodic. "And ever since then you have borne a grudge against shrine maidens?"
"Precisely. I vowed that day never again to respect their traditions. If I refuse to turn a cup three times before drinking, it is not ignorance, it is rebellion. I am a man who remembers his injustices, no matter how small."
She was laughing so much her shoulders trembled. "Haruki-kun, to hold a vendetta over a pebble game you lost as a child—"
"Did not lose," I interrupted sharply. "It was theft, not defeat. A crime against the natural order. And I will never forgive it."
Her laughter grew softer then, almost affectionate. "You are incorrigible. No wonder you and buchou clash so often. Both of you cling to your pride like it is life itself."
"Pride is life itself," I said, sipping the tea without ceremony. "Everything else is borrowed."
"You really are something else. You have an opinion on just about everything," said Akeno, still laughing.
I simply shrugged and drank the bitter tea.
"Can I ask you a question, Haruki-kun?" said Akeno suddenly, there was something hesitant in her gaze.
"Sure," I said calmly.
"What is your opinion on the fallen angels?" she asked, her tone nervous to my surprise.
"Pretty boring," I answered. I told her what I had once told Rias, what seemed like ages ago. So, I told her what I thought of the Fallen. Not warriors cast down in some grand ideological struggle, not martyrs for thought or principle, no, they were expelled because they could not keep their pants on. Too lustful to stand in heaven, imagine that. It is almost comical in its mediocrity.
And if you have ever had the misfortune of reading the Book of Enoch – which I have, regrettably – you would know they did not merely fall. They plummeted with all the grace of drunkards falling down stairs, dragging humanity with them. They handed out sorcery like candy, whispered the secrets of war, and for reasons that still baffle me, invented cosmetics. Then, to crown their enlightenment, they made it their mission to impregnate every peasant girl from Babylon to Antioch. All so they could play god to creatures barely out of the mud. Pathetic does not even begin to cover it.
Akeno laughed at my rants, though I noticed there was a certain melancholy to her by the end of it.
"Yeah, you are right. The fallen are merely a bunch of pathetic creatures that only cause suffering," she said with a venom that surprised me. That was interesting.
"Why so serious?" I asked curiously. I had some guesses but I wanted to be sure.
She did not speak for a while so we sat in silence that might have been uncomfortable for anyone else.
"Have you ever heard of the five principal clans, Haruki-kun?" she asked seriously.
"Of course I have," I said calmly.
"When?" asked Akeno, surprised.
"You mentioned it just now," I said with a deadpan.
Akeno did not seem to expect that answer as she burst out laughing. She looked unusually tense, so I tried to lighten the mood. It seems it worked perfectly.
"I suppose you are right," said Akeno, finally stopping her laughter. "The Five Principal Clans are five powerful clans composed of Shinto mystics who possess a divine connection to the Shinto gods and have served them for generations. Most of their members from ancient times have been blessed with spiritual powers over one of the five elements also regarded as the Five Phases, which is a part of their respective clans due to both their fervent faith and strict worship in Shintoism," explained Akeno neutrally.
"Interesting, so they are the exorcist equivalent," I summarized.
"Exactly," said Akeno. "They are fanatics and detest anything that is not part of the Shinto faction. My mother was from the Himejima clan, one of those five families," she explained.
I did not interrupt and listened with rapt attention.
"One day she helped save an injured man and healed him and from that fateful encounter I was born," she explained, with a hollow smile that did not belong on her face. She stood up from her seat and expanded her wings from the back.
There was however something unique about her wings however, one side was the typical bat wings of the devil but the other side was black feathered wings similar to that of the fallen angels. I stood up from my seat and approached her in fascination. She did not meet my eyes.
"You are a nephilim," I said bewildered.
POV: Akeno
"You are a Nephilim," said the bewildered voice of Haruki-kun.
Well, there it was. My little truth laid bare, dragged into the light by his tongue. An offspring of a fallen angel and a human. One of those delightful abominations who, according to scripture and gossip alike, contributed to the corruption and wickedness of the pre-flood world. Mother really had impeccable timing, did she not?
"Yes," I said, trying to calm myself down though my voice sounded too smooth, like glass that might shatter if tapped the wrong way. "The man my mother healed was the fallen cadre Baraquel. I am a dirty creature of wickedness and evil, created from the union of the lost sons of God and the daughters of man. I had hoped that becoming a devil would get rid of these disgusting wings, to give me a fresh start, but instead what was born were these terrible wings of the fallen and a devil. Once wicked, always wicked, I suppose. Very fitting."
I reached behind me and grabbed the feathers, those loathsome things attached to my back. How cruel that something so ugly feels so soft. A perverse joke, really.
And why was I telling Haruki of all people this? The thought drifted in slowly, like a question I did not want answered, until it finally crystallized, ugly and selfish and true. I wanted him to be the judge. I wanted him to tell me exactly what I already told myself every night, to condemn me as the wicked creature that I am.
Because Haruki does not gild things for comfort, and he does not turn lies into pleasant stories. He speaks in knives, never ribbons. He has seen evil, lived with it, wrestled with its rotten consequences, and if anyone could hold up a mirror to my worst and not blink, it would be him. Either he would cut me down into something recognizably wrong, or he would say, plainly, what I was too much of a coward to say for myself. Asking him was the cruellest thing I could do.
And of course, I did it anyway.
Even as that realization set in, shame rose in me like a tide I could not command. My mother's face, how it might have looked the day she took him in, was a weight I could not lift. She saved a man, and by saving him she invited me into the world. Because of that, because I existed, because some terrible sequence of events led to my birth, she is gone. She died because I was born. I repeat that sentence inside my head until it becomes the only rhythm I can hear, and every repetition makes the accusation sharper. The fact that I speak it calmly is no proof of peace. Calm is a brittle thing when layered over a wound.
I could not look at him when I said it. I could not let him see that what came from my lips was part confession, part apology, and part plea to be punished.
"You are beautiful," he said, without hesitation, without the smallest trace of the cruelty I expected.
I blinked. The word should have been a joke or a lie. In that room, with my wings and my confession and my own contempt for myself set out like a grotesque display, "beautiful" should have been meaningless. I looked at him and saw none of the amusement I had anticipated. He did not mock. He did not defer to politeness. He said the word directly, and the plainness of it made the rest of the room tilt for me. My breath caught, because sincerity is the one thing I never believed anyone owed me.
"Beautiful? How can you call this beautiful?" I demanded, outrage leaping forward before the tremor of relief beneath could escape. Better to wield anger than to admit hope.
"Because I find it so," he said casually, as if naming beauty were as natural as observing the weather.
Those two clauses, my challenge and the simplicity of his reply, lodged in me the way a single unexpected note lingers long after a song ends. They made no sense against the ledger of crimes and shame I keep, but they worked on me anyway. His words did not erase the ledger; nothing of mine is that easily undone. What they did was more dangerous: they unsettled me. They made me imagine, for the briefest time, that someone could hold my truth and not recoil. That possibility is something I have lived without for so long that its first impression felt like an accusation and a permission at once.
I could not understand him. Haruki cares naught if someone understands him or not, living life only according to his will. I did not know what to say, because anything I could say to prove I am a disgusting creature would have no effect on him.
So I stood there in silence.
"May I?" he asked, gesturing toward my feathered wing.
I nodded because I did not trust myself to speak.
His hand brushed against the feathers, stroking them with the care one might give to jewellery. His gaze was sharp, intent, as if there were mysteries to be found there. And oh, how embarrassing it felt to be studied like that.
"Hmm, softer than I expected, but lovely all the same," he murmured, almost to himself. Then, with that same maddening casualness, "Tell me, what happened to your mother?"
"When the clan found out about me, they could not accept it. A creature of sin like me had to be eliminated lest I infect others. My mother died trying to protect me," I said, my voice calm, brittle.
"I see. Predictable, I suppose," he mused. "But surely your father came for you? A cadre is not one to be trifled with."
"He never came," I said flatly. That coward had abandoned us. He never cared.
"I see. But why are you telling me all of this?" His calm voice again.
Why indeed.
"Because… beca…" The word caught in my throat, refusing to be born.
"You wanted closure," he said, his tone slicing through me. "You wanted someone to reaffirm your self-hatred. To tell you that indeed you are evil and should never have been born." He said it with open derision, as though tasting rot.
"Perhaps you are right. Because I am too much of a coward, I need to drag others into my misery," I said, speaking my true feelings.
"Of all the poisons a person can drink, self-hatred is the most corrosive," he said, disgust marring his tone. "People like to say pride is the greatest of the cardinal sins, but pride at least affirms the self. Self-hatred does nothing but deny it. It eats through everything – every bond, every effort, every hope – and yet somehow it always preserves itself. It will destroy everything except itself. It will ruin your relationships, reduce your ambitions, make you squander every strength you possess, and in the end all it leaves standing is the hatred itself.
"It is a remarkably efficient disease, because it convinces you that the executioner and the condemned are one and the same. It tells you you are unworthy, that you are stained, that no matter what you do, you remain broken. And if you listen, you will fulfill its prophecy, because the only thing self-hatred ever creates is more of itself.
"You may even think it is noble to despise yourself, as though the severity of your judgment is proof of your honesty. It isn't. It is a refusal to use what is already yours. The truth is you exist, whether you approve of that fact or not. And to exist while hating the very fact of it is the greatest disservice you can do to yourself," said Haruki.
His words had sharpness, but there was an odd comfort hidden in their sting. I could not refute him.
"You seek either pitiless judgment or soft absolution because you want a closure that someone else will supply, but the closure you need does not come from others. It comes from the decisions you make and the work you carry forward," he said with a look of compassion.
He paused only long enough for the syllables to settle. "If you prefer a single blunt truth over the prettier lies, here it is: hate and pity are both sedentary. They keep you in place. What will change anything is a refusal to play those roles. If you are ashamed, use that shame as a ledger to be balanced, not as a shackle. If you are angry, put that anger to work. If you feel weak, cultivate strength without apology. Do not ask for permission to exist in the form you have been given. Do not beg for other people's sanction of your worth. Make your worth unavoidable. That is the kind of defiance that alters fate. That is the only mercy worth seeking."
There was nothing tender in his tone, and yet what he said filled a void I had not realized existed. He looked into the part of me that demanded condemnation and reduced it to its true form: a claim for closure that would have cost me everything, my life, my freedom, my future. He did not deny the cruelty of my past, nor did he soften it. He refused to accept self-hatred as payment for what I had lost.
There was a peculiar cruelty in that refusal, denying me any consolation, any absolution from another. And yet it was not cruelty, not truly. It was truth. He did not give me the closure I thought I wanted, he gave me the freedom to confront it myself. The freedom to either condemn or forgive myself, and in that, there was a strange generosity. Perhaps it was fitting that the man most obsessed with freedom would offer it so unapologetically, insisting I claim it for myself.
What did I want? I wanted to apologize to my mother. I wanted to be loved again, to hear the words I could not speak: it is not your fault. But how could I grant myself that comfort when each reflection in the mirror only provoked disgust? I told myself I did not deserve happiness. I believed that being loved would only bring death to those around me. I could feel the pull of the darkness I had kept at bay for so long, ready to drag me into its depths.
Then his arms were around me, warm, unyielding, anchoring me as if I were a drowning girl given a lifeline. There was no hesitation, no gentleness that begged for pity, only the firmness of presence, the certainty of his strength.
"You foolish girl," he said, his voice low and deliberate, "can you not see that there are those who care for you? That there are those who would wish for your happiness?" His hands tightened around me, and his voice sharpened. "Rias, the others, do you think they would want you to hate yourself? Do you imagine your mother would find satisfaction in watching her daughter despise the life she gave so freely? Tell me, Akeno, would she be pleased if she saw what you have made of yourself?"
"Oh, no… Mother, I'm sorry," I whispered, my voice breaking. The weight of guilt, shame, and grief I had carried for eight years came crashing down, unrelenting. For the first time in years, I let myself cry. The tears poured without restraint, a torrent of agony I had long suppressed.
And through it all, Haruki held me with a steady, unwavering force, as if by his own strength he were keeping me tethered to the world, preventing me from being swept away.
I cried until there was no strength left to cry, until the storm of my despair had passed, and the quiet that followed felt like light breaking through the clouds after a long, relentless downpour. And when the sobs finally ebbed, there was a weight lifted from my chest, a clarity in my heart that I had not known for years.
For the first time in a long while, I felt… whole.
AN: New chapter is finally here, sorry for the late post. I kept rewriting this one. It was originally supposed to be much longer and include other characters, but the part with Akeno ended up taking a lot more space than I expected. I'm not entirely happy with how it turned out, but I'd really like to hear your opinions.